Casey Anthony Trial: Why The Defense Sought a Competency Hearing

These images were all captured before the opening of court yesterday after the abrupt recess over the weekend in the Casey Anthony trial. The defense was in incredibly high spirits.

Jose Baez is laughing and joking.

You don't usually see this Jose Baez in the court room -- laughing and joking and happy. He is losing this case, and maybe he thought that he would get a reprieve.

This is a very very happy Casey Anthony on Monday morning.

Does this look like she is on trial for her life? I know parents who have lost children and a decade after the event are still grieving.

Does this look like a distraught mother who's little girl had died.

It's not difficult to see why the defense and Jose Baez sought a competency hearing of Casey Anthony, who is on trial for her life for killing her two year old daughter Caylee in Florida.

Defense attorney Jose Baez came out strongly saying that Caylee died in a swimming pool accident and it was covered up by Casey the mother and George, Casey's father and Caylee's grandfather. The defense further alleges that the mother's bizarre partying behavior afterwards was due to the fact that Casey was sexually abused by her father George.

Baez has been unable to provide a single shred of credible evidence to support either theory. As a result, he has painted himself into a corner.

I believe that he held the mental competency hearing so late in the game, to cover himself. He now has a way out to personally save face when he loses this case. He will say that Casey spun one of her numerous lies about the abuse. He realized it was a lie, and could say that because of it she was not aiding in her own defense, and her competency should be questioned.

I believe that Jose Baez read the depositions, and knitted together the story from odd speculations of the pool drowning from various transcripts, and tied it into a neat little package of abuse to cover the behavior.

It is obvious that Baez is out of his league. He and Cheney Mason brought up the handcuffs issue on cross examination which allowed the prosecution to introduce the fact that Cindy Anthony wanted Casey charged with credit card fraud. Many many times, it was obvious that Baez had not paid close attention to some details in depositions that came back to bite him.

So, now at least he can say that he was bamboozled by Casey's lies, and when he realized it, he petitioned the court for a mental competency hearing. This was all drama to cover his own backside, in my opinion.

The other interesting fact is that he added a death penalty attorney to the case. I think that he knows now that he is going to lose.